SF based sculptor Jud Bergeron started a KickStarter campaign to ask for help in completing his ambitious sculpture QUACK-QUACK, a piece comprised of thousands of rubber ducks in the shape of an atomic bomb, cast in duckie yellow resin, emanating from the driver's seat of a vintage children's pedal car that will be cast in bronze, automotive finished and pinstriped. See below

As with most KickStarter campaigns, there are plenty of goodies you can receive. For $35 you can pick up a print - $25 gets you a duck tshirt - or $50 gets you both the shirt and print - $175 gets you an awesome bronze duck sculpture, and on and on... Check the video, and see for yourself.

Noam Rappaport (born 1974 in Sweden currently lives and works in Los Angeles) opens a solo show at Ratio 3 (Mission @24th) here in San Francisco Friday, February 15th, 2013 6–8pm.

Noam Rappaport @Ratio 3

This exhibition will feature a series of new works which simultaneously reside between painting, sculpture, assemblage, and drawing. One predominant motif within Rappaport’s work is the representation of image through minimal compositions, color, and mark making. With Rappaport's discerning use of simplified geometric shapes and refined color palates, the compositions reflect elements of the human form, landscape, and architecture.

Speaking of Jud Bergeron, who has been blogging his Miami trip for Fecal Face the last few days... we thought now would be a good time to feature our studio visit with him we did a couple weeks ago.

On the outskirts of the Mission, amongst motorcycle chop shops and other miscellaneous industrial buildings, Jud occupies a 1000 square foot studio where he casts his sculptures and works on his art projects. With enough room for his welding equipment and hardware, Jud is currently using the space to complete a show which he hopes to open sometime the next year- most likely to be shown in NYC.

We spent about an hour chatting with Jud and picking his brain to learn more about sculpting in metals and how the casting process works. It's a painstakingly slow process at times, but Jud's highly efficient having been working with a blowtorch for over a decade.

A week ago Friday night, Ever Gold Gallery opened New York-based Adam Parker Smith's newest show Forever 21. The small space was packed with people, and I could very quickly see why; the work is really extraordinary. The only thing I wish was that there was more space to see more of his work, because it is impressive. But this is San Francisco, so space isn't exactly readily available, and Ever Gold balanced the available space perfectly by not overwhelming it with too many pieces. Furthermore, the intimacy of the space really added to the experience.

The gallery door opens to a small entrance space with a sculpture of a VW Bug inside a glass bottle as well as a fabric/painted piece reminiscent of Blinky Palermo's compositions. The VW Bug inside the bottle is painted to every detail, including a hole in the windshield with painted cracks extending from it. The car itself is a detailed sculpture, but placed within the bottle (somehow) it became an outrageously intriguing item. The draped fabric piece with its peachy hue was a great transition into the main gallery, where Smith shows his other sculptures. Unlike the Bug, these sculptures are direct references to gynecological genitalia, but become abject body parts rather than sexual references. These forms are made of foam, bound by rope and remove the fragment of the vagina from the rest of the body, creating a non-sexualized form. Instead of insinuating a sexual viewing of the work, these sculptures allowed pure formal interpretation. Then, placed on marble-like columns, which were bound by bungee cords and emphasized as not being actually marble, these genital forms were raised to classical standards of fine art. This was further connected to the draped front piece, which can either relate to classical dress or another sexual body part, without overt reference.

The rest of the show consists of other sculptures including the whimsical (Untitled) Kanye Shades which is a set of white window blinds cut into the shape of sunglasses. Shown on a white wall, the contrast between the piece and the wall is subtle, and the humor is muted, but insistently present. Also, the monochrome wall helped to balance its opposite wall which was hung with a "marriage proposal" made of sewn-together friendship bracelets. The texture and color of this piece are significant alone, but there is a complex meaning implicit in the fact that they are friendship bracelets and instead of symbolizing one relationship, it includes the connection of thousands.

Finally, the back room of the gallery is tiny, but provides the perfect space for what is displayed. The bodily innuendo of the show is continued with a floor sculpture of a watermelon with an inviting, glowing pink hole. The last corner holds what looks like an altar, with some really complex pieces inside of it. These works look like a poster hung on the outside of your bathroom window, to which you see through the steam after your shower by wiping away the condensation the glass. I am completely clueless as to how he achieved this look, but my god is it effective. Some works have writing and some are just cleared spaces to the poster, but no one could miss out on it; we've all wiped away steam from our mirrors, but more often, we do it to see ourselves, not celebrities who are usually displayed transparently.

Smith's work is so complex that much more could be said about it, but truthfully words don't do it justice – these pieces must be seen in person. I can't wait for the opportunity to see Smith's work in the large space of a museum, which I'm sure is just around the corner for him. For now, Ever Gold has done a great job in showing as much work as possible, and it must have been very difficult to narrow what works would be included in the show, because like me, I'm sure they just want to keep seeing more.

If you can only get to one art show in the next couple of weeks, get to AJ Fosik'sLamplighter to the Promised Land at Guerrero Gallery. This is seriously not one to be missed. Guerrero opened their huge space to Portland-based Fosik and his wooden totemic animal figures this last Friday, and many took the opportunity to find themselves some awe and amazement.

The wood sculptures are either free-standing or wall mounted, looking like either a taxidermy standing bear or a mounted elk's head, but the color really separates them from any natural characteristics. For the wall-mounted pieces, spray painted patterns can be seen on their bases before layer upon layer of the figure extends from them. I was especially drawn to Strange Regions in Search of Beauty, Awe or Terror from this year which compounds a human face, a human skull, and a bull's head, revealing the animalistic nature in us all. Each of us has days when we feel there is a bull inside struggling to break free, and this piece reminds us of our own power to do so. For me, this one was all about internal drives and desires, and the power in embracing and releasing them unto the world.

The small Project Gallery in the back also held works by Daniel Albrigo with smiley face paintings and a sculpture made of smiley beach balls. The paintings are light and fun and have titles like Don't Forget to Smile with hues of pink and light blue. I kind of feel bad for Albrigo because his work does deserve attention, but I just had to get back to Fosik's pieces. They are endlessly exciting and each detail is superb.

One of my favorite details of the work was the shingle-like scales he employed on his free-standing figures such as Exploder Installation. These scales are sharp-edged and painted colorfully, so why do I believe them to be realistic? It seems like that head is going to start snarling and it is going to leap off the pedestal at any minute. And the hands! The animalistic figure has human hands, and unlike the other figures which have them in distinct gestures, these are positioned more as if in prayer-pose. Maybe its meditation is what is keeping the beast back, so it is necessary to be left in peace.

Words cannot do these pieces justice, and neither do the pictures that follow. Please, go see this show. You will not be disappointed. No matter what age, gender or culture you are coming from, you will find something in this work that speaks to you. With about twenty large pieces, Fosik's work will stick in your brain, and I have absolutely no doubt that you will be seeing a lot more of him in the future.

Consisting of hundreds of individually cut pieces of wood, vividly varnished and strategically placed, each of Fosik's pieces undergoes full woodshop gestation, a trade he taught himself. Evocative of American Folk Art, drawing inspiration from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and religious iconography, his sculptures are "existential fetishes."

Tony Marsh shared twelve new works with a very sophisticated financial district crowd last Thursday night @Hedge Gallery. Guests were immediately greeted with wine and hors d'oeuvres (which were very good, by the way) into the brightly lit space that seemed to be glowing from the street. The space is large, so there was room for guests, and there were quite a few who seemed to be enjoying themselves, including a little ballerina.
~continue reading

As the group show The Diamond Sea approaches the opening this Saturday, Oct 13th (6-9pm) @FFDG in San Francisco, we wanted to introduce, or in most cases "reintroduce" you to the artists who will be participating.

Meredith Dittmar lives and works in Portland, OR. Her last solo show was in Mexico City @Fifty24MX featuring some of her recent clay sculptures. Besides working on her intricately beautiful clay sculptures, Meredith also works in animation and design.

I know Im supposed to be good at this question but it never seems to go well. I usually say something along the lines of "relief-like sculpture in polymer clay mounted in shadowboxes"

Influences?

Visualizations of maths and science, Integral theory, Non-dual teachers, everywhere I have been and everything I have seen

Favorite place traveled?

It’s a boring answer but I like it all - same Now, different scenery!

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

Mornings are my best time and music changes with my mood and the kind of work Im doing. If theres a lot of repetition Ill listen to nerdy talks

Describe your process for creating new work.

I research, collect images and words, then let it marinate a bit. Next I mix the clay palate and begin making small parts inspired by my research until I have a decent library of assets to pull from. From there I settle in and start making larger pieces. I like to do all the sculpting first for all the pieces I'm going to make, then move on to painting the backgrounds and prepping the pieces to be mounted. My husband makes all my shadow boxes. The final step is to glue them and clean them and seal them up.

Eric van Straaten emailed some of his 3D modeling artworks to us, and they're pretty interesting in their subject matter but also in the process of how they're created.

Through 3D printing, with services like i.materialise.com, you can turn your computer generated 3D model into a physical sculpture. You don't need any sophisticated applications either. They have browser apps that can create 3D models. Pretty sweet.

Fabric 8 here in SF is selling their Eric Otto parklet for $12,000. The parklet is made from recycled materials found at the San Francisco Dump AKA Recology, where Otto completed the artist-in-residence program in 2010. The piece was constructed in five parts at Otto's Mission art studio, then transported to Fabric8 and affixed on top of the steel frame. -more info - VIDEO

As Jud wrote, I am in the process of creating a few more pieces for him, a bronze water wall that has a similar feel to the fire pit and then a large bronze and carved wood dining table that will be opposite the fire pit and the water wall and will incorporate many of the elements used in the other two pieces. The inspiration for all of this work comes from a Bukowski poem titled 'Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame' and we also wanted to give it (fire pit) the feel of Saurons castle from Lord of the Rings with a decidedly modern feel.

Grew up in New Jersey but currently living in Baltimore. Just turned
23. Graduated from MICA last May. www.laurajudkis.com.

How would you describe your work to someone?

Lately my work has taken a sculptural turn, but I come from a painting
background. I make aggressive, psychologically charged abstractions.
I'm interested in the tactile and sensual qualities of my materials,
and I'm hoping for visceral reactions.

Nature is not evil, it's ugly. That's why we have gardens. It's like ok, but we can do it a little bit better by arranging everything. We are obsessed by Tetris, order and man-made systems.

Before nature was scary, then romantic. But now we feel sorry for it. But does it matter? It create shapes and we create shapes or are we it? Surely, we don't want to. I create shapes and so should you. -Axel Brechensbauer (Barcelona)

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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